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With Catholic Schools Week ending Saturday, the Allentown Diocese is looking to the future.

"Our first priority is to increase enrollment in the system," William Kirwan, Orwigsburg, a member of the Bishops Commission on Catholic Schools, said Monday. "We've been rapidly losing a lot of kids over the last 10 years, and we need to turn that enrollment tide around and strengthen the system."

According to the National Catholic Education Association, U.S. Catholic school enrollment reached its peak during the early 1960s with more than 5.2 million students in almost 13,000 schools. The 1970s and '80s saw a steep decline in both the number of schools and students. By 1990, there were about 2.5 million students in 8,719 schools.

However, from the mid-1990s though 2000, there was an enrollment increase of 1.3 percent despite continued school closings.

Between the 2000 and the 2010 school years, 1,603 schools were reported closed or consolidated. The number of students declined by 533,697 with elementary schools suffering the most losses.

In the Allentown Diocese, enrollment in the 2010-11 school year is 12,479, down from 13,096 in 2009-10, according to communications director Matthew T. Kerr.

There are two Catholic high schools in Schuylkill County - Marian Catholic High School with 318 students, and Nativity BVM with 206. Of the seven elementary schools, Trinity Academy in Shenandoah has 156 students - the largest enrollment.

St. Nicholas Elementary School, Minersville, is not part of the Allentown Diocese.

To strengthen Catholic schools in the diocese, the Most Rev. John O. Barres, D.D., Bishop of Allentown, established the 13-member bishop's commission last November.

"I believe in the effectiveness of our great Catholic school system and our responsibility to properly educate our children, religiously and academically. Our schools will benefit from the strategies and insight the commission members will provide," Barres said at the time.

Monsignor John B. McCann, pastor of Immaculate Conception Church, Douglasville, Berks County, is co-chairman with Allentown businessman Mark Lieberman. McCann has served as the diocesan chancellor, and Lieberman was involved in the diocesan enrollment turnaround in the 1980s, which resulted in 10 years of growth.

Kirwan, principal of St. Clair & Associates PC and a 1977 Nativity graduate, is the only commission member from Schuylkill County. He said the national statistics on decreased enrollment are mirrored in the diocese and Schuylkill County.

"We are experimenting with some scholarship ideas, and we have some pilot programs that we're rolling out throughout the diocese for additional scholarship aid for kids," Kirwan said. "We're also looking at other incentives to increase enrollment like rewarding existing students and their families who refer other new students to the school."

Cost is sometimes the reason parents do not enroll their children, but Kirwan said it is worth the expense.

"I think we need to emphasize to the people - our prospective customers - the value of Catholic education. We look at our high school graduation rates, our college graduation rates, and kids who have gone to Catholic high schools are just superior (in college graduation rates) to the general population. While it is a small investment of dollars for grade school and high school, it's well worth the cost, and that's the message we have to get out to the folks," he said.

"There are scholarships available through the Education Improvement Tax Credit. The diocese has the Eastern Pennsylvania Scholarship Foundation to help children and the parishes all pitch in to help children with need," Kirwan added. "Hopefully, nobody that truly can't afford the education and wants it goes away. We want to educate all those kids."

Diocesan Secretary for Catholic Education Philip J. Fromuth said traditional ways of inviting students to consider Catholic education is being augmented to get better results.

"Marketing has been in place for three decades, but we're now reaching out beyond our schools and parishes and telling our story to the community at large," said Fromuth. "We see Catholic schools as an asset not only to the church, but also to our local communities and the nation. If that is the case, we need to tell our story in a larger venue."

2010-11 Schuylkill County Catholic schools enrollments

Elementary schools

All Saints Elementary School, Pottsville - 95

McAdoo Catholic Elementary School - 102

St. Ambrose School, Schuylkill Haven - 117

St. Jerome Regional School, Tamaqua - 153

St. Stephen Regional, Port Carbon - 78

Trinity Academy, Shenandoah - 156

High schools

Marian Catholic High School, Hometown - 318

Nativity BVM, Pottsville - 206

Diocese as a whole

2010-11: 12,479

2009-10: 13,096

According to the United States Catholic Elementary and Secondary Schools 2009-10 Annual Statistical Report on Schools, Enrollment and Staffing:

- The average per-pupil tuition in Catholic elementary schools is $3,383, which is approximately 62% of the actual cost per pupil of $5,436. About 93% of Catholic elementary schools provide some form of tuition assistance.

- The secondary mean freshman tuition is $8,182, which is approximately 80% of the actual cost per pupil of $10,228. About 97% of secondary schools provide some form of tuition assistance.

- The difference between the per-pupil cost and the tuition charged is obtained in many ways, primarily through direct subsidy from parish, diocesan or religious congregation resources and from multi-faceted development programs and fundraising activities.

Source: ncea.org

Also appointed to the commission are: Monsignor Edward Sacks of Bethlehem, pastor of Our Lady of Perpetual Help Church; Mary Birkhead of Allentown, dean of Enrollment Management at DeSales University; Rosemarie Bukics of Bethlehem, an educator who is a CPA and a professor of accounting and finance at Lafayette College; Iris Cintron of Bethlehem, recently retired supervisor of Minority Affairs, Governmental Programs and Grants for the Bethlehem Area School District; Frank Godino of Nazareth, business development officer with First Star Bank; Gary Iacocca of Allentown, owner of Yocco's Inc. a regional fast food chain; Patrick Reilly of Jim Thorpe, president and chief executive officer of the Mauch Chunk Trust Company, headquartered in Jim Thorpe; Greg Shemanski of Reading, president and chief executive officer of Custom Processing Services, Inc; Joseph Topper of Bethlehem, chief executive officer of Lehigh Gas Corporation, a distributor of branded petroleum and convenience store services based in Bethlehem; and Jeffrey Young of Blandon, owner/president of Buy-Rite Liquidators Inc. and managing partner of Young Properties LLC.

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